It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, hence missing last week’s blog. As mentioned at the end of my last post, I spent the weekend before last in France. Being as the subject of this blog is about getting outdoors, it won’t surprise anyone that I explored the local vicinity on foot as much as possible, mainly in the medium of running.
Having a keen eye for anything pain inducing, I spotted there was a hill on the edge of the city, not far from the Air BnB. There was a fort on top so it had to be quite high. It wasn’t as high as the mountainous foothills behind it, but they were out of range really. I mean, I go on holiday and run to relax, not run hilly half marathons, that would be insane (tuts, rolls eyes).
On day one, off I went up the winding coast road, getting lost more than once. On one of these occasions, I found myself on the main road from Nice to Monaco. Stopping to look at the map, my navigation was disturbed by a rabble of French tourists, enthusiastically making their way across the road towards me looking both incredibly pleased and excited. My first thought was, “Crikey, don’t ask me for directions because firstly, I’m lost, and secondly, my grip on the French language is so loose I sound like I’m doing a bad impression of Officer Crabtree from Allo Allo.” Anyway, through the alien words that they said, I heard the phrase, “C’est Jenson Button!”. For years, my sister and countless others have remarked on a slight resemblance to the former Formula 1 champion, so as soon as they said it I thought, “Oh no, not this again”. Basic year 9 French left me only with the phrase, “Je suis Anglais”, which of course is probably exactly what he would say. Now I did something I’m not particularly proud of. I went along with it. I posed for photos, and stopped short of signing autographs. I mean, that would just be fraudulent and upset innocent people. I managed to gesture towards my watch, and pointed to the summit of the hill, and promptly legged it, chuckling to myself.
Despite the language problem, I found Nice to be very warm, vibrant, friendly and safe, despite its terror problems in recent years. I’ve now added the Nice marathon to my bucket list, as well as the surrounding mountains, and have even started learning French again for the first time since 1996. Particularly the phrase, “I am NOT Jenson Button”.
My Outdoor Living Room 